Melting Snow
by festus-nuggets
Summary: Leo Valdez is frozen in his tracks by the new arrival at camp. He wants to make their relationship work out, but with her godly parentage icily breathing down his neck can he manage not to burn her?


Leo wound up the miniature bronze dragon, praying it wouldn't malfunction this time. The small delicate dragon was a replica of Festus, as big as Leo's palms put together, back when he was a dragon and not a masthead.

Leo sat up on his bunk, ready to spring into action in case Little Festus decided to go haywire again. He turned the little dragon tail, and it's ruby eyes glowed brightly. Little Festus let out a column and took off flying.

"No!" Leo yelled. The cabin door swung open and Leo's little half brother stepped in with a big grin.

"Leo! Look at what I forged!" He called, excitedly waving a sword above his head.

Leo ran out the door. "It's awesome Peter!" He yelled while running after the small dragon. Leo cursed himself for designing the dragon to fly so fast.

He stopped at the volleyball courts scanning for the dragon. He placed his hands over his eyes creating shade from the bright mid-June sun.

"Leo! Look out!" someone screamed.

"Wha?" Leo turned around and got a face full of volleyball. He rubbed his stinging cheek. "You Aphrodite kids sure can hit hard," he mumbled.

"Sorry Leo," Piper jogged over.

"Yeah, yeah it's fine. Listen have you seen a miniature bronze dragon flying by, about this big?" Leo held up his hands to indicate the size of Little Festus.

Piper stared at him. "Uh, no."

Suddenly a tree by the Amphitheater caught fire, and a column of smoke rose into the air.

"Thanks Pipes!" Leo yelled at he ran towards the flames.

* * *

"Shit," Leo muttered. A nymph was trying to beat the flames with her dress, but it wasn't helping. Percy was also trying to beat out the flames with his blue jacket. "Percy! The water from the canoe lake!" Leo yelled joining them in trying to beat out the flames.

Luckily Percy understood him. Dropped the jacket and clenched his fists. Shortly, a wave over water washed over them. The cold water knocked Leo over leaving him coughing up water. "Percy, what happened?"  
Percy had a small scorch mark on his Camp Half-Blood shirt. "Well, I was sword practicing on the hay dummies, and this little bronze thing swooped on me and scorched my shirt. I swung at it and missed. We got into this intense battle; I was dodging and slashing, but that this is just so little. I ran behind the tree to avoid being cooked, and it set the tree on fire. Then Olive here," he gestured to the nymph who had her arms crossed over her chest and was frowning at the boys, "Started beating me but I insisted that she try to beat the fire out first. Then you showed up."

Leo whistled. "It's only 12:00 man. Hey do you know where the dragon went?"

"You made that thing, huh?" Percy capped riptide.

Leo bit his lip. "Yeah. This happened last week, except the Ares cabin found it and, ah. You get what happened. But I really need to know where it went to I can fix it."

"It flew towards Thalia's Pine. You might want to stop it, cause if it burns that tree, Thalia will burn you," Percy smiled.

"But," Leo began protesting that he couldn't be burned. He thought better of it and ran towards the Pine. He caught his breath when her saw her.

She was standing next to the tree looking at the valley with Little Festus in her hand. She was gorgeous, and Leo was tempted to ask for her number but something about her threw him off. It was on the tip of his tongue, but he just couldn't pin it. He approached her and silently wondered why Peleus wasn't attacking her.

"What up?" Leo flashed her a smile. She raised an eyebrow at him. "Yeah, okay, well, what your holding there is my dragon, and I'd like to have it back so if you don't mind." Leo held out his hand. The girl dumped Little Festus in his hands, and put her hands in her jean short pockets. "Thank you," Leo sighed as he deactivated the dragon. "Bad Paulo," he scolded.

"You named your dragon Paulo?" The girl asked. Her voice had an icy cold quality to it.

"It means 'little' in Latin. It's a small version of a dragon I repaired a few months ago," Leo explained. "Um… are you a demi-god?"

The girl regarded Leo with coffee brown eyes. "That's what my father told me when he dropped me off. I still don't believe it though. I'm expecting a camera crew to pop up from somewhere."

"Welp, I guess you are a demigod, since Peleus didn't eat you, plus you got past the magic boarders. See that big blue house down there? Go there, and Chiron will help you," Leo said pointing towards the four story barn house.

Leo looked at the girl. She had hair black as night, and pale skin. She reminded him of someone, and he desperately tried to recall who she was. Had he hit on her somewhere before? Nah, she would've recognized him, too.

Peter can running up with his sword calling out Leo's name when he saw the girl standing next to Leo he stopped and got into a fighting stance.

"Who's that?" Peter asked keeping eye contact with the girl.

"She's um…" Leo realized he didn't know the girl's name.

"I'm Karli. I'm from Montana, but my dad decided to drop me here because my house was consumed in a fire last week. It was my fault but…" She looked at Peter and Leo. "I'll just go to that barn house now."

She ran down the hill, into the valley, her black hair flying out behind her.

Leo watched her run. "Peter why don't you tell me about that sword your forged?" he asked as he and Peter walked back to cabin nine.

* * *

Dinner was uneventful except for the announcement of a new camper. Everyone shuffled out of the dinning pavilion and made their way to the amphitheater for a campfire and s'mores. Leo walked along with his cabin and caught a glimpse of Piper riding on Jason's back. He smiled at his best friends. They were a really good couple.

The Apollo kids starting singing and soon everyone joined in. The air was warm and filled with laughter and lyres being strummed.

Leo shivered. The air suddenly felt cold. He looked around and noticed people rubbing warmth into their arms. Which was odd since they were at camp, plus they were sitting in front of a giant fire.

Leo noticed it first. Snow. Snow was falling lightly and melting as soon as it hit the ground.

"Um, guys," Leo said. "Is it kinda chilly or is it just me?"

Campers started looking up at the sky as if they could locate the source.

"Oh my gods!" someone screamed.

An icy wind hit the camp and covered everyone with snow. Some of the Aphrodite girls whined that their clothes were wet a ruined. Leo shivered. He summoned fire in his palm and melted some of the snow away. A small gust hit him and extinguished his flame.

"Wha?" he gasped.

A bright blue light filled the amphitheater and Leo covered his eyes. The light dimmed but did not diminish. Leo turned to the source of the light to find a blue snowflake floating over Karli's head. She had a terrified look in her eyes, but she seemed to be the only one not bothered by the cold.

Chiron brushed snow off of his body and kneeled. "All hail Karli Meyer," he hesitated. "Daughter of Khione."

* * *

**AN: GASP**

**Don't worry peeps I'll explain _almost_ everything come next chapter. Review so I know how I'm doing and seriously if you have something harsh to say, _SAY IT_. I need to hear it, please.**

**Thanks!**


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